Who started Amway? Amway’s founders and their vision

Amway’s origin can be traced back to a partnership, a simple agreement between two high school students in Grand Rapids, Michigan—one with a car and one who was tired of walking.

Jay Van Andel agreed to give Rich DeVos a ride to school each day in exchange for 25 cents a week in gas money. That was the first time the Amway founders had met, and it was the beginning of a lifelong friendship that produced several entrepreneurial ventures.

What developed has been described as one of the greatest business partnerships in history and it launched what is now the number one direct selling company in the world. Amway was built on the belief that business ownership improves lives through personal achievement, the opportunity to earn income and helping others succeed.

Rich’s son and Amway Co-chairman Doug DeVos said the strength of the partnership between his father and Jay was rooted in common values and trust. They shared a strong faith, a spirit of adventure and independence, confidence in free enterprise and a powerful belief in people, he said.

“They believed that every person had incredible potential within themselves, and all they needed was an opportunity to express it,” Doug said. “And they always trusted each other. That was easy when things went well, and absolutely critical when things went wrong.”

When was Amway founded?

Amway was founded in 1959 in the basements of Rich’s and Jay’s homes in Ada, Michigan. But it was not the first business they started together. In fact, the pair tried and failed at several businesses before becoming Nutrilite™ distributors and forming a plan to launch their own direct selling company.

The first was a flight school. Rich invested the $700 he had saved while in the military to buy a Piper Cub airplane with Jay. Still in their early 20s, they opened Wolverine Air with the sales pitch: “If you can drive a car, you can fly a plane.”

Neither knew how to fly, but they believed flying planes would become as common as driving cars and hired pilots to do the teaching. When they realized there were no dining options near the school, they opened the Riverside Drive-Inn to provide meals for students and pilots, despite neither having any cooking or restaurant experience.

The pair also invested in manufacturing wooden toy riding horses. Unfortunately it was at the same time another company came out with a molded plastic model that was lighter and less expensive. Rich joked decades later that he was still finding springs and wheels from that venture. But they never gave up.

“I’ve always believed that a good challenge presents good opportunities: To learn, to grow, to gain strength or to reach a higher goal,” Rich once said. To him and Jay, failure wasn’t an end but a step in a journey of learning. Every failure helped build the foundation for their future success.

Their introduction to direct selling

In 1949 the pair was introduced by Jay’s cousin to the Nutrilite business – an opportunity Rich initially viewed with skepticism, but which would prove to be the foundation for their future. Through that experience they struck on the idea of helping people go into business for themselves and founded Amway.

They were inspired, in Rich’s words, to put business ownership “within the reach of everybody – that’s what makes it exciting.”

That pioneering idea helped Amway grow from selling soap out of two basements in Ada to a global health and wellbeing company with nearly 400 products that are sold by millions of Amway Independent Business Owners in more than 100 countries and territories around the world.

A tradition steeped in entrepreneurship

Rich and Jay always knew they wanted to own their own business and they were excited to help others do the same. Rich, especially, never considered doing anything other than working for himself.

Rich’s father, Simon DeVos, lost his job during the Great Depression, forcing the DeVos family to move in with Rich’s grandparents. Rich’s dad encouraged his only son to always be able to control his own destiny by never working for anyone else. And except for being a paperboy and serving in the military, Rich always worked for himself.

Amway’s origin and legacy: Founders Fundamentals and Amway Values

The entrepreneurial spirit along with the commitment to hard work and helping others that were driving forces for Rich and Jay when they founded Amway became embedded in the company’s culture.

Today, Amway employees and IBOs are guided by the Founders Fundamentals of freedom, family, hope and reward. And those are supported by the Amway Values of partnership, integrity, personal worth, personal responsibility, achievement and free enterprise.

“That’s part of who the Amway business is,” said Steve Van Andel, Jay’s son and co-chairman of the Amway Board of Directors. “It’s part of what dad and Rich put into the business and that we perpetuate.”

Have more questions about Amway? Check out some of the other common questions in the Amway Answers.